Details

Subject(s)

• Sexual selection—History [Browse]
• Evolution (Biology) [Browse]
• Sexual selection in animals [Browse]
• Darwin, Charles 1809-1882 [Browse]

Summary note

Darwin's concept of natural selection has been exhaustively studied, but his secondary evolutionary principle of sexual selection remains largely unexplored and misunderstood. Yet sexual selection was of great strategic importance to Darwin because it explained things that natural selection could not and offered a naturalistic, as opposed to divine, account of beauty and its perception. Only now, with 'Darwin and the Making of Sexual Selection', do we have a comprehensive and meticulously researched account of Darwin's path to its formulation - one that shows the man, rather than the myth, and examines both the social and intellectual roots of Darwin's theory. Drawing on the minutiae of his unpublished notes, annotations in his personal library, and his extensive correspondence, Evelleen Richards offers a richly detailed, multilayered history. Her fine-grained analysis comprehends the extraordinarily wide range of Darwin's sources and disentangles the complexity of theory, practice, and analogy that went into the making of sexual selection. Richards deftly explores the narrative strands of this history and vividly brings to life the chief characters involved. Twenty years in the making and a true milestone in the history of science, 'Darwin and the Making of Sexual Selection' illuminates the social and cultural contingencies of the shaping of an important if controversial biological concept.

Bibliographic references

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Contents

• Prologue: "an awful stretcher"
• Beauty, brotherhood, and breeding: the origins of sexual selection. The ugly brother
• Good wives
• "Bliss botanic" and "cocks heroic": two Darwins in the "temple of nature"
• Beauty cuts the knot
• Reading the face of race
• Good breeding: the art of mating
• "Better than a dog anyhow"
• Flirting with fashion
• Development matters
• "For beauty's sake": the making of sexual selection. Critical years: from pigeons to people
• Putting female choice in (proper) place
• The battle for beauty: Wallace versus Darwin
• Writing the Descent: from bird's-eye view to masterful breeder
• The post-Descent years: sexual selection in crisis, female choice at large
• Epilogue: last words.

Show 13 more Contents items

ISBN

• 9780226436906 ((cloth ; : alk. paper))
• 022643690X ((cloth ; : alk. paper))

LCCN

2016036765

OCLC

956947766

Other standard number

• 40027275876

Statement on language in description

Princeton University Library aims to describe library materials in a manner that is respectful to the individuals and communities who create, use, and are represented in the collections we manage. Read more...